


Salt Water

by Luckybuckyboy (Whowantstoknow259)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Chapter 2 is an alternate ending, Hurt No Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Stucky Scary Bang 2017, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, because the author is a wimp, ghost story, slight body horror, slight noncon medical procedures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:12:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whowantstoknow259/pseuds/Luckybuckyboy
Summary: The only thing the Asset can smell is rotting seawater. He's bone dry and drowning in it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My Entry for Stucky Scary Bang 2017
> 
> Chapter 2 is an alternate ending that begins after *** in Chapter 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Entry for Stucky Scary Bang 2017
> 
> Chapter 2 is an alternate ending that begins after *** in Chapter 1.

The Asset smelled brine. 

When they defrosted him, it was mixed in with all the normal scents of a hydra base. 

Old blood and brine, stale sweat and salt, ozone and ocean water.

He assumed that the base was on the coast, the way that the smell of the cold Atlantic seemed to seep in from the corners of the room. The smell of rotting fish and salt water saturated metal was in every room. 

They hose him down and then take him to the chair and for a second all the Asset could hear was the ocean, it roared in his ears, so loud he was afraid it would break through the walls and fill his mouth and he would drown and it would feel like how it must have felt when he went under.

The thought was odd enough that it broke through the noise of the ocean and suddenly the asset could no longer hear the crash of waves but he could still smell salt water and he wondered who did he know that drowned. 

Then he was put into the chair and he didn’t remember anything at all.

-

When they pulled him from the chair, the first thing he noticed was the smell of briny salt water. 

It’s not that he found it unusual, he couldn’t remember anything so for all he knew the smell could have always been there. It was the stench of it. It was overwhelming. Like he’d been soaking in it. A new method of preserving him.

The thought disturbed him so he focused on what the technicians are doing. Connecting his IV and g-tube to give him what his body needed to run on for the next forty eight hours. After they finish his handler brought him a folder to read while the drip bag pushed liquid into his veins and a technician administered three syringes of nutritional fluid into his g-tube port.

The mission specs felt familiar even if he had nothing to compare it to. They were not removing his g-tube port so he would not be expect to resort to hand to hand combat to complete the mission. They would drop him off at a building and he was to climb to the roof and then wait with his rifle until he could get a clean shot at the target.

His kit contained his rifle and stand, a side arm and a holster, a wind speed monitor, nine syringes of nutritional fluid that he was to administers every eight hours that he was on the roof, a pan for him to piss in, and a watch. They dressed him in civilian clothes, jeans and a shirt with an oversized jacket that would cover the arm and the gun in the holster, and a pair of boots.

He couldn’t remember why but the civilian clothes, the g-tube, and the rifle were all comforting to him. Well comforting in the sense that he preferred to be behind the gun, waiting, instead of the alternative. 

He didn’t know what the alternative was but when he thought about it for too long it felt like warm sticky blood on his fingers and so he stopped thinking about anything but the mission.

He felt surprised when the van left the compound and he found that the ocean was nowhere in sight. He could smell the salt water brine of the ocean so clearly, he could practically hear the crash of the waves. 

He considered reporting the malfunction to his handlers but decided that it wouldn’t interfere with the mission. 

They parked the van in front of the building and the Asset got out and climbed up to the roof. After some quick calculations he set up the wind speed monitor and his rifle. The pan he left in the bag and the watch he put on his wrist. The gun was already in the holster under his jacket.

It took four hours for the target to arrive home. When he did, he wasn’t alone, a younger man followed him inside and the two of them settled in the man’s living room with tea, seemingly engrossed in conversation.

The target was a minor politician and the Asset was not privy to why he was being assassinated only the details that were necessary for him to carry it out. 

The Asset had a clear shot but the file said that it was preferable if it happened alone to minimize any chance of life saving actions.

The smell of salt water was unbearable, it seemed to climb into the Asset’s mouth and choke him. He could feel the salt crusting on his tongue. Maybe it was just because he couldn’t remember anything beyond a few hours ago, but he was more thirsty than he’d ever felt in his life. 

The target and the younger man stayed in the living room for an hour before the younger man left. The target moved to the back part of the house, outside of view of the Asset’s scope and so he zoomed out so he could watch all the windows for signs of movement. 

He thought the target lived alone, was alone, but in the corner of the attic window the Asset kept catching movement, when he zoomed in he saw the shadow of a large man and a flash of red for a second and then he saw nothing. Still when he zoomed back out he kept catching the movement at the window. 

He had a total of forty eight hours to complete this mission but he wanted it to be over because his mouth was so dry, he couldn’t stop swallowing and feeling the painful dry click, the grit of salt between his teeth. The stench of the ocean was everywhere, he felt like it was choking him, drowning him, he’d almost welcome it if it took away his thirst but it was only the smell and never the actual waves. 

The target came back into the living room and so the Asset zoomed in with his scope and quickly checked the wind speed. 

Sixteen kilometers per hour, south west.

He adjusted his rifle and scope before peering again at the target. 

A large figure was now standing behind the target, casting him in shadow that made no sense because the lights in the room were in front of the target so there was no reason why a shadow should be cast. 

The target didn’t react, didn’t seem to see the figure, the man and the long shadow that he cast.

The Asset suddenly felt sick his stomach, he wanted to lift his scope, to look at the man behind the target. The stench of salt water was all he could smell, he could hear the swell and crash of waves, he could feel the temperature drop improbably quick towards freezing, his heart was racing for reasons that he couldn’t explain.

The man with the long shadow stepped through the target and walked until he was filling the targets living room window. Even from so far away, the Asset could hear his steps, each step sounded like the crackle of ice and the pounding of water against a metal hull of a ship. The man’s torso was all that the Asset could see. 

A drenched, cracked, rotting leather jacket wrapped around a skeletal frame, through which the Asset could see rags that were red and white and blue and that made some dormant part of his brain start howling incomprehensibly.

He was no fool, he knew that every time he was awake that what his handlers and the technicians did to him was torture, inhuman cruelty, and it was something he endured, something he was made to endure. But he knew, on that roof, in his bones, that if he looked up, he looked at the face of the man in the window who cast such a long shadow, he would see a dead thing and that the sight of it would be unendurable. 

He could not stay here on this rooftop, he had to get away, get away from the sound of the ocean and the dead man in his scope. 

His handlers be damned, they could not force him to endure this.

Not this.

He jerked back from his rifle, and grabbed the bag with his syringes in it, he would need the nutritional fluid soon.

Taking the rifle would feel comforting but when he touched it the sound of waves swelled and could feel the taste of corroding metal in the back of his mouth. 

He left it. He had his handgun anyways.

He left his mission, and his handlers. 

Quickly he calculated the best route for his escape. If he went down to the street level then they’d be in the van ready to take him and wipe him and put him back on this roof with the dead man in the targets home. So he leapt from rooftop to rooftop until he reached the corner of the block that was furthest from his handlers. 

When he was moving he could smell air that wasn’t tinged with salt water and hear the sounds of London winding down for the day. Whenever he paused though the smell of brine and the sound of crashing waves threatened to overwhelm him, drown him on land, miles from the ocean. 

The Asset climbed down from the roof and set about disappearing into the city, he couldn’t remember ever being to London but there was an instinct for navigating urban environments that he felt in his bones. He knew how to walk like everyone else was walking, keep his head down and how to move in a way that didn’t stand out. 

He shoved his metal hand in his pocket and then went down at the nearest subway entrance, easily traceable but it would allow him to cover ground quickly. The signs said that it was called the underground and not the subway, but it still felt familiar, and he found that he could easily read the map on the wall.

He needed to get off this island and disappear into Europe. 

He took the next line that arrived heading south. 

The train made him feel uncomfortable, it wasn’t the people, although they didn’t help because he constantly hand to monitor his own behavior to make sure it was socially appropriate. It was just the way that it moved on the tracks, and the sounds of the wheels. 

He felt tense all over. 

Even worse, even though he was moving, his body was standing still and the smell of salt water and rusting metal was creeping into the car. Every station that the train stopped at had the man who cast a long shadow standing next to the entrance.

The Asset could barely hear over the roar the waves. He could hear the sweep of the water getting sucked off the beach and the loud crash of it returning. It was so loud it felt like it was shaking the train car, it felt like the lights were flickering and there was a phantom feeling of water lapping at his combat boots.

He almost missed his stop because he was terrified to exit the train and walk towards the man blocking the stairway to the street. 

Keeping his eyes on the floor, he forced himself to do it anyways, the roar of the waves felt like it was pressing against his ears.

The Asset felt like his head was going to explode. 

He passed the man and felt icy bony fingers tug at his sleeves.

It felt like a sense memory. So visceral and real that for a second the Asset was sure that if he just turned his head, he would see a small pale man not a the large dark shadow.

The Asset couldn’t help but break into a run, he wanted to escape the smell of salt water and the unbearable gaze of the pale man, the man with a shadow.

He ran up the stairs, no doubt calling attention to himself in the worst way, but he couldn’t fight the urge to flee. 

He blindly ran for what felt like a long time, until he could not longer smell salt water or heard the crash of waves. 

He tucked himself into an alley, not really to catch his breath, so much as to collect himself, pull himself back together and continue with his plan. He also took the opportunity to administer three syringes of nutritional fluid to his g-tube.

The plastic grew more irritating as he moved around, rubbing the skin around it raw and red. It was only partially because of the harsh movement of running, mostly it was because the skin surrounding the g-tube port was trying to close around it. Nothing needed to be done about it yet and it was the easiest way to administer food without making himself sick so he decided to leave it for time being. 

The Asset ground his teeth and did not think about the gritty of salt between them. Did not think about the growing suspicion in the back of his mind.

He left the alley and walked up the street, eyeing the cars parked along the road for the right kind of vehicle. 

He knew he must have been in cryo for a long while because the number of cars with computers was much larger than the last time he got the opportunity to roam the streets. This was problematic because a car with a computer probably also had built in gps tracking systems.

Thinking about the gap in time made the waves roar loud enough that he was once more aware of them so he kept his thoughts strictly about what he was looking for until the sound died down. 

He eventually found the kind of old shabby car he was looking for, not newly restored and old enough that there should be no computers or aftermarket gps chips. It’s easy for him to hotwire and the train had taken him far enough past the fringes of the city that he didn’t think he needed to worry about toll booths. 

He couldn’t remember ever being in London but he knew the roads he needed to take to make it to Dover, where the channel was narrow enough for him to easily swim across.

It was not exceptionally chilly and it’s only the late afternoon so he studiously ignored the way that ice crept across the windshield despite the afternoon sun and temperate weather.

The drive was just long enough that his mind started to wind back around the near constant smell of salt water. Aside from a few hallucinations about ice on his windshield, the man with the shadow had not done much more than made the entire car smell like a particularly foul dock. Mouldering rope, rusting metal, rotting fish, and the ever present smell of salt water. But the Asset’s mind had time to turn over the puzzle in the back of his head.

He knew.

He knew who the shadow was.

It was one of his victims, he wasn’t programmed to be particularly superstitious but he knew that the reason he needed to be wiped so often was because he could feel the wrongness of what they made him do in his bones.

The man must have been one of the many innocents that he had killed, haunting him, reaching beyond the grave to punish him for what he had done.

The logic of it was clarifying, crystallizing, and he wished he could remember the man’s face.

He wished he could remember every face that he had killed. It wouldn’t make it better, wouldn’t change what his hands had done but there was a part of him that felt like the only thing that was real, the only thing he could be sure of, was the weight of the lives that he had taken. 

When he reached Dover he swapped cars and continued to the English Channel. 

He’s not sure if his handlers would have noticed he’s gone. It had been roughly eight hours since he was dropped and he had been given forty eight hours to make the shot. They wouldn’t check up on him to risk drawing attention to the roof but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have cameras or that his face didn’t ping something on with facial recognition malware on his trip through the city. 

Well actually if he had made it this far it probably did mean that they didn’t have cameras on him on the roof because it meant he had a head start. 

He didn’t remember a lot but he did know, instinctually in his bones, how he knew most things, that these handlers treated him like he’s a docile domesticated animal. 

They had forgotten that he was a dangerous predator even under their control. 

He wasn’t sure if this was the first time he’d gotten free of his handlers, but he silently promised himself that he would not be taken back. 

He would kill himself before he allowed that to happen.

The Asset pulled into a small marina that looked like it was for local access to the beach. He briefly considered finding a boat to steal but then decided against it. Up until this point he had been easily traceable. Hydra would follow him right up to the edge of the water. But he wanted them to have no idea where he came out of the river on the other side.

After climbing out of the channel he would become a ghost. Like his ghost, only existing to torment the ones he haunted. 

He couldn’t easily distinguish between the smell of the river and the smell of his salt water ghost but so far he had not seen the man since he had gotten into the first car. 

He did not think that meant that the ghost was gone.

He took off the handgun and holster and put them into the duffle bag which had a waterproof lining.

Now that his gear was stowed, he had to deal with his g-tube port and the arm.

The arm was fairly easy, it had too many engineers messing around inside of it over the years for it not be easy to open and identify parts. He quickly found the trackers and removed them before closing it back up. 

He considered his g-tube port, he felt it every time he moved and it was only a matter of time before his body rejected it completely but if he ripped it out he would be swimming with an open wound. He searched the car and found a windbreaker which he wrapped tightly around his middle, putting pressure on the port, before tucking his shirt and his jacket into his jeans.

He’d find some bandages on the other side and remove it after the next time he needed to feed himself the last of the nutritional syringes.

Might as well make use of them. 

When he was ready he waded straight into the river and began to swim. His plan was to swim to the other side and then swim down river a couple of miles before pulling himself out. 

It went well at first. It was a long swim but he was a super soldier and he’d eaten recently so he had the strength and stamina to first cross the river and then to swim parallel to the shore, letting the river’s current do most of the work. 

But after about an hour in the water he felt the already cool temperature start to drop, and the stench of briny ocean water overwhelmed his senses. He kept swimming, powering through the fear and adrenaline, but then he felt it.

Something cold, even through three layers, brush against his back.

He fought the urge to lash out, the last thing he needed to do was start thrashing around in the water and maybe drown himself. He started angling himself towards the shore, even as he swam he could hear the crackling of phantom ice and the groaning of metal underwater. When he got river water in his mouth it tasted so salty he felt like he was going to vomit. He suddenly felt skeletal hands grabbed at his flesh wrist, as if they were going to pull him down to the bottom of the ocean.

River. He was still in the river.

He broke free and kicked his legs faster until he could feel a giant rock under his feet and quickly scrambled up it and into the bushes. 

He froze as soon as he was hidden and looked back for the ghost. He didn’t see him, but as he looked he saw lights on the horizon, lights that looked like the search lights from a boat.

He couldn’t be certain it was hydra, but he wasn’t going to be sticking around to find out for sure.

He moved carefully back into the foliage. Despite being practically driven from the water, the area of the bank was exactly the type of egress point he was looking for, the rock left no trace of him exiting the river and the nearby bushes and trees hid him until he was well away from the shore. 

Which took care of hydra, but there was no way to lose a ghost.

He shivered, remembering the sensation of being grabbed, of ice cold bone fingers dragging him down into the ocean, no he was never in the ocean, it was down into the river.

The constant rank smell of salt water brine was confusing him.

He seemed to be in a forest with no visible signs of civilization, he started heading south and eventually found what looked like a supply shed. On the side was written Le Platier d’Oye réserve naturelle. 

It was locked but that was no great obstacle and inside he found gardening supplies, a small cache of non-perishable food, clothes and outdoor survival supplies, and a thin metal cot. 

He also found a fairly well stocked first aid kit. He gathered all the gauze and quickly jerked out the g-tube port. He wrapped the stoma with gauze and settled down onto the cot for the two hours before it would be healed enough for him to move.

He felt a stab of regret when he remembered that he had wanted to wait until he fed himself but now that it was out of him he couldn’t feel anything but relief. He hated it, hated why they put it in him and hated how when he was on missions where he couldn’t wear it their solution was to let him starve. 

He hated the control they exercised over every part of his body including his digestion.

It was overwhelming to him how deeply he hated hydra and his handlers. He couldn’t stop the swell of impotent rage at everything they had done to him, everything they had made him do. But after one shuddering second he choked it back down.

One day he would find a way to destroy hydra for what they had done but right now he was only human enough to know how much he was not human at all. He knew nothing about his past missions other than the vague knowledge that his skills had to have come from training. They were more muscle memory than programing and between that and the scars on his body they were the only clues that he had existed before the chair that he climbed out of not even a day ago.

Well that and his thoughts. He very much doubted that if he was exclusively a creation of hydra they would have bothered with giving him complex reasoning. 

If he thought about it, he’d liked to think that he was their prisoner and not a volunteer. Clearly the way they treated him would make the most loyal person turn, but he felt sick that there was even the possibility that he had belonged to them voluntarily. 

He sat on the bed, stewing in his revulsion and trying to fight back the rising fear that came with it. 

He should be resting, maybe seeing if his body would allow him to sleep or at least relax. Once the stoma closed he would need to get out of France and further into the interior of Europe. He wanted to get away from surveillance states that were Western European countries and head East to towards the countries with the type of infrastructure where it was easier to hide.

But he couldn’t rest, couldn’t stop his brain as it turned over and over in his head the idea of hydra, capturing and wiping him, using him again. 

He felt trapped by it, could feel it rising in him, his breath coming in harsh pants. The Asset was physically imposing even without a fifty pound high tech weapon grafted onto his left side but he felt as weak and helpless as a child against the threat of hydra. 

He was so foolish for running, to think he could get away. They loomed so impossibly large, they were everywhere, had eyes everywhere. They would find him, they would recapture him. 

He grabbed his handgun from the duffel, it felt heavier than it’s three pounds. 

He could stop hydra from ever getting him again, he could take himself out of the equation and it would be a relief.

He’d wouldn’t be able to stop them, to get his revenge, but ultimately the possibility that seem unlikely. He had skills but no context or real knowledge of what he could do until he was already doing it and even he so was one against a multitude that already knew how to control him.

While he was staring at the gun, something snuck up on him like a hidden wave, the smell of brine suddenly flooding the room as the sound of waves breaking against the metal siding of the small shed, a dark shadow feel over him, and suddenly he could see waterlogged and rotting leather boots on the floor in front of him.

The soaking, ragged, remains of combat pants tucked into the boots, they were tattered but mostly intact, still The Asset could see patches of mottled bloated flesh of the man with the long shadow’s legs through the holes. The chest of the man was wide but the rotting leather jacket hung on him like underneath was only bones, and the man’s hands were more bone than flesh. 

The Asset was terrified to look at the man’s face. He thought that there’d only be a grinning dripping skull, he thought that he might recognize the man. He wasn’t sure what would be worse. 

He forced himself to do it anyways and tipped his head back the final inch to see the face of the ghost that was haunting him.

Pale grey skin stretched loosely over a wide jaw, high cheekbones with deep starving hollows, lank blond hair that floated like it was underwater even now, and the eyes that were black pits like a skull would have. 

Like the blue eyes that should be there had rotted away in the dark and cold watery grave that the ghost had risen from.

The Asset couldn’t stop his gasp, could barely hear that he was mumbling “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Stevie.” over and over to himself because the roar of waves was deafening.

This wasn’t one of his victims, or rather, this wasn’t just any victim. This man, this ghost, was important, this was his first victim, he must be. The first and greatest time he’d failed another human being.

The ghost reached out with his cold skeletal hands and the asset could no longer stand it.

He had been right on the rooftop. This was unendurable agony, staring into the dead man’s face.

He couldn’t stand the fear of hydra, couldn’t stand being confronted with what must have been, must have been, his greatest sorrow. He couldn’t even remember the man but it felt like his gut was being ripped through his chest, and his lips could not stop apologizing. 

He knew the way to keep himself from hydra, the way to join this man. His gaze dipped down to the gun even as the the ghost’s fingers brushed his cheek.***

“I’m sorry Stevie,” he whispered one more time before he put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

-

When Steve was defrosted he first tried to ignore the horrific dreams that he still remembered, dreams about Bucky in the ice. 

His best friend tortured and broken, his beloved killing himself right before Steve’s eyes.

It was a nightmare, it had to have been. Steve had been unconscious in the ice. Bucky was dead, long dead, and how fucked up was he that he took comfort in that. 

He did not like to think about the dreams. Did not like to entertain the idea that they might be real.

But ultimately there was a way to prove that it was just his morbid imagination, that it wasn’t real. He still remembered the name painted on the wall of the shed where Bucky had killed himself in Steve’s nightmare.

Le Platier d’Oye réserve naturelle. 

It took a lot of courage, even as much as Steve had convinced himself that it hadn’t been real, to google for bodies found there. 

When he found the news article about the man with a metal arm being found dead of an apparent suicide in the supply shed in the Southern part of the reserve Steve whited out for a long time.

He came back to himself five hours later and found he’d torn his S.H.I.E.L.D. apartment to shreds. 

Six months. He’d been six months away from being found in the ice and---- 

He’d been alive. Tortured and broken but alive and needing to be saved and Steve had failed him once again.

He had left him out in the alps to rot, to be taken by hydra and tortured for seventy years, and he’d failed him again in that shed in Northern France.

He would root out hydra, destroy them, then he would find a way to make death stick. He would find something he wouldn’t walk away from and he’d follow Bucky one last time.


	2. Alternate Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starts after *** in Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't just leave it like that. I played chicken with myself and then wrote this because I lost.

***

He was about to raise the gun to his lips, to end it when the ghost grabbed his wrists, suddenly and violently. Not letting him escape. 

 

“Please,” He whispered, staring up into the black pits where the man’s eyes should be.

 

The skeletal fingers brushed his cheek and everything went black.

 

When he opened his eyes again, he knew instantly that it had been longer than a couple hours, his stoma was completely closed and he felt barely any twinges beneath the skin, letting him know that deeper healing was underway.

 

He did not think about what he’d almost done. What he would have done if the ghost had not stopped him.

 

He gathered the blandest food that was in the small cache, the stale crackers and the peanut butter, and took the clothes and survival gear, and then left the shed to start his journey across Europe.

 

The Asset was a trained operative, he was a ghost, and when things became hard he had his own personal ghost to keep him company and to drive him forward. 

 

The smell of salt water brine was constant and it gradually became a comfort. 

 

His mind and his body healed, without the constant interference and torture, he regained himself a bit at a time.

 

His ghost, his Steve only showed himself when he was at his lowest, he was a cold comfort at times, although other times was literally a cold comfort. So cold but such a comfort, it helped that he was not alone.

 

Especially the night when his name came back to him.

 

Sometimes Steve seemed more aware and present and he would talk to Bucky, would wrap his icey arms around Bucky and they would hold each other until Bucky’s lips turned blue. 

 

Sometimes Steve was just the drifting floating skeletal presence that had chased Bucky out of London, he’d drift near Bucky, occasionally brushing at him but nothing more. 

 

Still comforting.

 

Even in death, having Steve near was a relief even if it made Bucky want to cry and scream if he thought to hard about it.

 

Then after about six months the constant smell of sea water disappeared and Bucky had a small panic attack. 

 

He’d found a permanent place, a small apartment in a large city in Romania. 

 

When Steve disappeared a part of Bucky hoped that Steve was finding peace, a much larger part was devastated at being alone. 

 

He allowed himself to grieve for a day and then continued with the business of living until after three months of being alone he received a text on his burner phone.

 

_ They found me, I’m alive and I’ve been dreaming, only I don’t think they’re dreams. I’m with you until the end of line. _

 

Later he will think about how it might have somehow been a trap, later he will thank what small luck that he had. But after his heart started again he sent back a text that would confirm to Steve who he was talking to.

 

**They aren’t, your mom’s name is Sarah and you wore newspapers in your shoes. Where are you.**

 

_ New York _

 

**I’m coming.**


End file.
